The Gateway to Heaven?

(October 3) Ask yourself to name the three most beautiful places you’ve seen on the planet, and ask yourself why you made these choices. Was it a beautiful beach, a majestic mountain range, the most charming of cobble stoned villages, or, maybe, a lush tropical paradise? Then, narrow your choices down to one. How can there be just one best, one most beautiful place?

I thought that myself until we came to Santorini. The pictures I had seen over the years seemed stunning, but I also knew this place to be a popular tourist mecca -- something that tends to erode great beauty very quickly. Does Santorini have tourists? You bet. Does it have a thousand jewelry, t-shirt, and souvenir shops? Of course. But, all of them combined cannot begin to put a dent in the overwhelming grandeur and sheer mind-bending, breathtaking beauty of this place. Most of the island is a huge rock, but at its western façade, it serves as a fitting foundation for the small, white-washed towns that hug the cliffs along a fantastically sparkling Aegean Sea with views to the horizon so vast and so sweeping you swear you can see the curvature of the earth. The Caldera, as they call it, or the volcanic remains of what was once part of this island, jut out of the sea just enough to give a proper sense of size and distance to this matchless vista and give context to sunsets that are so breathtaking they can make you cry.

The towns of the west coast are a vertical jumble of white-washed buildings and blue-domed churches. They seemingly overlap one another so that from a distance they appear to be one rolling structure. Trying to identify a particular hotel or restaurant from a distance, as you move higher or lower along the aerie-like paths that hug the cliffs, is a game in itself, not entirely unlike “Where’s Waldo.” From the water, the towns and cliffs give all the appearance of snow-capped mountains, the cliffs a deep reddish brown capped by the sea of white buildings on top.

Somewhat like the Amalfi coast in Italy, Santorini’s famed western slope towns are not for the poorly conditioned. Everything is either straight up or straight down. Even getting from our hotel bedroom to our bathroom involved a hike of several steps up and then a steep staircase down. (In the middle of the night, this is not a task taken lightly.) What this presents is an endless opportunity to see everything from different angles -- from above and below -- as you navigate vertically. In one moment you are looking up at a church dome; in the next, you’re taking a picture of the same dome from above.

The alleyways of these towns, notably Fira, and the crown jewel, the achingly beautiful Oia (pronounced Eeya), are almost narrow enough to span with your arms. There are no cars here; there is simply no room. Automobile traffic is relegated to streets inland and to the flatter parts of the island. But, the manner that these alleyways connect, sideways and vertically, give you the feel sometimes that you’ve landed in a life-sized M.C. Escher drawing where all paths seem circular and without resolution.

As in Rhodes, there seem to be cafes and restaurants every nine feet. I have no idea how all of them survive, but I’m told they do. You pay for the view, of course, but mostly that is a price we’re willing to pay. Order your “tomato balls” -- deep-fried tomatoes in a chewy crust -- or deep-fried stuffed olives, or cheese plates, or, for heartier fare all of the beef, lamb, octopus and calamari dishes you can imagine. Ply yourself with local Greek wine, put your feet up on the railings, and breathe deeply.

As they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. For me, the eye-popping effect of these starkly white-washed cliff hugging towns against the matchless backdrop of the Caldera and the Aegean, all from a height that seems miles high, is as good as it gets. Is it perfect? No. Is it close? Oh yes. At this moment, I am sitting on a chaise by our pool staring out at a scaldingly sun-washed sea that, as I say, seems to be miles below. There’s a cool breeze blowing, and even the monstrous cruise ships that lurk in the harbor seem no bigger than toys. They are no threat to us right now. We will enjoy cocktails later as we watch the world-famous sunsets here where the sea takes on hues of pinks and reds and the white facades of these towns turn peach in color. Dinner lies beyond. Somewhere.